Historical Aspects Of Ancient China

According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, power is the ability or right to control people or things. This definition is apparent throughout the history of China and through historical figures. Confucius is one of the most influential historical figures of Chinese history. In Confucius’s mind, the government should retain power, however, not to the extent that they do today. According to The Confucian Ethic and More About Confucius, “the government’s most important job was to inspire people [...] to feed and protect the people and gain their admiration” (The Confucian Ethic 13) . Confucius’ beliefs differ from what is going on now because he is calling for the government to treat the people with respect and take care of them. This may exist somewhat in China today, but China is known for killing political prisoners and silencing people who disagree with them. Mao Zedong, another historical

“Warning states”. Stability means to be strong. A dynasty is a family thats continues to rule for a very long time. Ancient China created stability by landowners,creating cities, and Great Wall Of China.

The Great Wall of Ancient China: Did the Benefits Outweigh the Cost? The Great Wall was built by the Qin and Han Dynasty in order to protect China from the Mongols. However, the benefits of building the Great Wall of China did not outweigh the costs for building the Great Wall. In accordance to Document C, the soldiers had to leave their homes and families in order to work on building the Great Wall. This supports the claim because the soldiers had to sacrifice their families when they had already been sacrificing their lives to fight for China.

Usually you would hear of hundreds of people being killed by terrorist attacks, airplane crashes, or war, but in Ancient China, the Great Wall of China killed hundreds of peasants in the makings through forced labor. The benefits didn't outweigh the costs because through the makings of the wall, it separated families, killed soldiers, and families/ loved ones sacrificed their lives and lifestyle.

During the period of ancient chia there were many philosophers who saw their own views upon the ways of which china was to be run. With the time there were many rulers which lead their views on china’s government and its exploits and so with these views came counterviews. There were those who saw a new way to run china for bad or for worse such as two famous philosophers named Confucius and Han Fei. Confucius wanted china to be run with peaceful yet firm rules and restrictions whereby the people of chia would act in such a way that was thought to be most moral and respectful. A quote from the analects of Confucius (Doc 1.) says “Lead the people with governmental measures and regulate them with laws and punishment, and they will avoid wrongdoing but will have no sense of honor and shame.

The world's longest man made structure started out as the world's biggest cemetery. In 221 BC Emperor Qin Shi Huang ordered for the construction of a great wall to protect, impress, and glorify Ancient China (history.com). His labour force was mostly made up of soldiers, peasants, convicts, and volunteers and it is estimated that 400,000 died during the construction (background essay). While the Great Wall costed Ancient China lots, it gave them protected from their biggest threats, protected merchants trading on the Silk Road, and opened China up to the rest of the world.

Furthermore, the source materials for writing the book were found in the dynasty. Evidently, in the era of Sima Qian, the Shiji provided a ground for the to-come dynastic histories. However it varies from them in many ways. It is characterized with a long time span and similar attempts to incorporate the whole mortal history was rare among later Chinese historians. Also, the source material was too varied. Qian’s father was supposed to complete writing the definitive history of the Chinese past, a feat that he did not finish. The same was later completed by Sima

“ This gave rise to the premise that if the people of an empire are unhappy, they have to right to overthrow the ruler and give the Mandate of Heaven to a new and better ruler. Confucius believed that in order to have a good society and good life, there must be a benevolent ruler who will lead the empire to prosperity. History continues to repeat itself in China by an empire rising and prospering and eventually becoming corrupt. Then the people award the Mandate of Heaven to a new ruler who will go through the same cycle of creation and degeneration. This tracks with another Chinese philosophy, Yin and Yang, which states that opposite forces—such as benevolence and despotism—are interconnected in the natural world. All of this combines to emphasize the relevance of historic repetition to the development of China.

3. How could the hexagrams of the I Ching (The Book of Changes) be viewed as means of divination? How could they be seen as having personality and wisdom of their own? Note the

His writings, including The Analects, formed the base of what every educated Chinese person learned, giving the person understanding and knowledge about the virtues and values that formed China through the centuries. Han poetry is a style of poetry has led to important poems still preserved today, Emperor Wu established the Yue Fu it was the folk style music which the lines are uneven length, often of five characters, and emphasize the vicissitudes and joys of a person daily life. The Heavenly Horse was a small bronze horse found in Ganzu in the tomb of general Zhang, represented the kind of horse the Chinese aspired, the horse was balanced on one leg, defying gravity and the ability to fly of the horse having stolen from the bird beneath its hoofs. The architectures of Han were building all kind of buildings such as watchtower, basic common house around the world and the Buddhist temple look like Indian stupas. The empire expanded its cultural and political influence overall of Vietnam, Korea, Mongolia and Central Asia before it collapsed under both internal and external pressures.

Laozi gathered eighty-one short texts and placed them into two books. Book one contains thirty-seven and Book two consist of thirty-eight. Each passage falls into one or more themes. These themes are; the Way, Non-desiring, Knowledge, Value, Non-action, Nothingness, and Nature. In the thirty-seven chapters each one describes a different aspect of The Daodejing.

According to legend, nearing the end of his life, Lao Tzu set off into the desert toward what is now Tibet, sadden and disillusioned that men were so unwilling to follow the path to natural goodness. When he arrived at the final gate at the Great Wall of China, the gatekeeper convinced Lao Tzu to record his teachings and the principles of his philosophy before he left. He then composed in five thousand characters, eighty-one sayings that make up the Tao Te Ching. This ancient Chinese text is the most translated classic worldwide next to the Bible.

When the early Christians had to keep their faith against the persecutions of the Roman Empire, they had -- obviously -- a visible enemy. Once their religion was legalized and established, however, they had new questions to ask concerning who they were, what could hurt their souls and their way of life. Some of them, at least, concluded that the materialism of the dominant Roman way of life was a non-agressive, but equally corrosive force that would destroy them -- not physically, but spiritually. These Fourth Century Christians, men and women, then left their societies and withdrew into the desert to be able to find true "paradise," not in a safe, secure niche in society, but in their relationship with

The Six Dynasty period in Chinese historiography is often classified with moments of conflict, revolt, strife, famine, disunity, and not innovation. Historians and academics categorize the period as a placeholder between the more significant Han China—206 BCE to 220 CE—and the Tang dynasty—618 to 907 CE. Understandably, Han China’s military, infrastructure, and civil capabilities were rivalled only by that of the Roman Empire, and even then, the Han dynasties administrative capabilities were rivalled by none. The Tang period is widely considered to be the high point of Chinese culture and civilization, where cosmopolitan China emerged with force vastly shaping China for centuries to come. The significance of the Han and Tang dynasties is not in question, it is the lack of importance that historians confer on the Six Dynasties period. Admittedly the Six Dynasty period in Chinese history can be categorized as a warring period, in which China did not develop unilaterally, but separately along fractured lines (split both north-south, and east-west). Much like the European medieval period, there are few accessible sources from early-medieval china, and because of this, China’s six dynasty period is brushed over as a period of little advancement and innovation. The “Dark Ages” in Europe use to receive the same scholarly interpretation as a period of stagnation.

     A pattern that was common among the ancient civilizations of China, Rome, Greece, Mesopotamia, Egypt, and India was that most of them started as a dictatorship, a monarchy, or a dynasty. Eventually, most of them changed to a democracy, republic, or to class systems. Almost all of the civilizations had one or two great leaders. For example, Egypt had King Tut, Greece had Alexander the Great and Rome had Julius Caesar.